Once An Eve Novel

forty-two



WHEN I RETURNED TO MY SUITE, THE KING WAS WAITING FOR me. He stared at the wedding dress laid out on the bed, a bundle of papers clutched in his hands.

“You said you’d let him go. You showed me pictures, took me to his cell,” I said, unable to contain my anger any longer. “You lied to me.”

The King paced the length of the room. “I don’t need to explain myself, certainly not to you. You don’t understand this country. You knew about people who were building a tunnel to the outside and you didn’t tell me.” He turned, leveling his finger in my face. “Do you have any idea what kind of danger that would’ve put civilians in? Having an open passage into the wild?”

“The soldiers shot them,” I said, my voice trembling.

The King crumpled the papers in his hand. “Those men have been organizing dissidents for months, planning to bring weapons and who knows what into this City. They had to be stopped.”

“Killed,” I snapped, the tears hot in my eyes. “You mean killed—not ‘stopped.’ Say what you mean.”

“Do not speak to me that way.” The blood rushed to his face. “I’ve had enough. I came here this morning, early, to bring you this,” he said, throwing the bundle of papers at me. They landed on the floor. “I came to tell you how proud I was of you and the woman you’re becoming.” He let out a low, sorrowful laugh.

But I was barely listening, my mind instead running over the events of the morning. He’d ordered Harper and Caleb killed. But who had told him about the tunnel beneath the wall? How had Stark gotten there before me? The questions ran through my mind on an endless loop. Caleb is dead, I kept repeating, but nothing could make it feel real.

“There are nearly half a million people downstairs,” he continued, “waiting for their Princess to come down the street with her father, to offer their good wishes before she is married. I will not keep them waiting.” He headed to the door, his fingers pounding the keypad. “Beatrice! Come help the Princess get ready!” he yelled before disappearing down the hall.

The door slammed shut behind him. I let out a deep breath, feeling the room expand in his absence. I looked down at my hands, which burned now, my wrists red from where the restraints had been. I kept seeing Caleb, his face before he fell, the way his arm was crushed beneath him. I closed my eyes. It was too much. I knew he couldn’t have survived, but the idea that he was gone, that he would never cradle my head in his hands again, never smile at me, never tease me for taking myself so seriously …

I heard Beatrice come in, but I couldn’t stop looking at the scraped skin on my wrists, the only proof that the last several hours had really happened. When I looked up, she was standing there, staring at a spot on the carpet.

“It was Clara, wasn’t it?” I said slowly. “What did she tell them? How much do they know?”

But Beatrice was silent. When she looked up, her eyes were swollen. She kept shaking her head back and forth, mouthing the words “I’m so sorry.” She finally said it aloud. “I had to.”

Something about her expression frightened me. Her lips were twisted and trembling. “You had to what?”

“He told me he would kill her,” she said, coming toward me, wrapping her hands around mine. “He came up early, just after you left. You weren’t here. They’d discovered Caleb’s empty cell. He said he would kill her if I didn’t reveal where you were. I told him about the tunnel.”

I pulled away, my hands shaking.

“I’m so sorry, Eve,” she said, reaching out for me, trying to stroke my face. “I had to, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t,” I said. “Please go.” She came to me again, her hand on my arm, but I slunk back. It wasn’t her fault. I knew that. But I didn’t want her comfort either, this person who had played a part in Caleb’s death. I turned toward the window, listening to the sound of her choked sobs until they settled into silence. Finally, I heard the door close. When I was certain she was gone I turned, studying the crumpled papers on the floor.

I picked the first one up, calmed by the familiar handwriting. It was the same yellowed paper I’d carried with me since School. The old letter, the one I’d read a thousand times, was now sitting in a backpack off Route 80, outside of that warehouse. I would never see it again.

The sheet was worn around the edges. Wedding day was scrawled along the front in wobbly letters. I sat on my bed, pressing the paper between my fingers, trying to smooth out the hard crease from where he’d crumpled it in his hand.


My sweet girl,



It’s impossible to know if and when you will read this, where you will be or how old. In the passing days I’ve imagined it many times over. The world is always as it once was. Sometimes the church doors open up to a bustling street, and you stride out, your new husband beside you. Someone helps you inside a waiting car. Other times it’s just you and him and a small crowd of friends. I can see the glasses raised in your honor. And once I imagined there was no wedding—no ceremony, no big white dress, none of the tradition—just you and him lying beside each other one night and deciding that was it. From now on, you’d always be together.

Whatever circumstance it is, wherever you are, I know that you are happy. My hope is that it is a big, boundless happiness that works its way into every corner of your life. Know that I am with you now, as I’ve always been.



I love you, I love you, I love you,

Mom

I folded the letter in my lap. I didn’t move. I sat there on the bed, my face swollen and pink, until I heard the King’s voice, as if startling me from a dream. “Genevieve,” he said, his voice stern. “It’s time.”